


The Skills Not Taken

by Kestral



Category: Godsfall Podcast D&D Campaign
Genre: Animal Death, Cooking, Gen, violence is largely considered but not enacted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 06:05:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13851645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kestral/pseuds/Kestral
Summary: Finding themselves lost in the woods, Haldir and Phryane must find a way to survive, ideally with some comfort. Unfortunately, neither are well prepared for this.





	The Skills Not Taken

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for the Godsfall Fanbook a while back, and now i'm finally getting around to posting it! You can follow the link to see it there with beautiful art and other good writing! https://www.scribd.com/document/369734363/Godsfall-Fanbook

Haldir reached forwards and pulled open the door. The hinged creaked, wailed, and then with a crunch broke free of the doorframe, forcing him to quickly step back as the door toppled over.

“This is going well,” Phryane commented, looking over his shoulder.

He looked up to the ceiling, and then down at the floor, seeking to make an appraisal of the structural stability of the building. He didn’t know anything about architecture, beyond how to analyze it for it’s aesthetic or fortifiable value. He could conclude that this cabin, built in the middle of the dense forest where he and Phryane had found themselves, would not protect them from a catapult or platoon of soldiers, and only had aesthetic value if you liked that sort of thing. He could not conclude if the roof would cave in, or if the floor would hold.

He took a step inside, letting his eyes adjust to the gloom.

A kind person would call it rustic, a bit of a fixer-up, perhaps even bucolic. Lord Haldir Loran of Ryland would have liked to call it a shithole, but still wasn’t sure about the young queen’s sense of humor. Instead, he took stock of the situation.

“It doesn’t smell too damp in here, so perhaps if it does rain we will keep dry. The stove doesn’t look like it’s falling apart, so if we get a fire going we’ll keep warm, and there’s still a pan so we could cook something.”

Phryane scoffed. “And you know how to cook?”

Haldir rolled his eyes. “Of course I do,” he lied. “Do you know how to cook?”

“Of course I don’t,” Phryane rolled her eyes right back at him. “When would I ever have learned to cook?”

He floundered for a moment. He was royalty, why would he know how to cook? “One can not be too reliant on servants, your Highness.” He gestured around him. “You never know when you might be caught without them.”

She huffed. “I suppose that is fair, and this room is more comfortable than a stone room in an old temple with a decayed dwarf and a snoring halfling. We may as well–”

“Wait,” Haldir said. “I beg your pardon?”

“For interrupting me? You have it. Now we should get started. As you know so much about cooking, you see to the stove. I’ll check around, see if there’s anything else salvageable in or around this dwelling.” Phryane walked over the threshold and brushed past him to beginning examining a pile he had dismissed as garbage.

Bemused, he turned to the stove. Getting down to his knees, he lifted the latch and pulled open the heavy iron door. Fortunately these hinges held. He whistled through his teeth.

“Find anything interesting?”

“This stove is disgusting.” He stared at the mounds of ash. “What about you?”

“Well, I did find something that could help you with that. Here, catch.”

Barely turning his head to see what Phryane was throwing to him, he stuck out his arm. He snatched it out of the air easily, gripping the grubby, deteriorating piece of cloth. He turned to look at her.

She regarded him with arched eyebrow and an unreadable expression. “I’m going to check the outside, there’s nothing in here.” Somehow, despite being in simple traveler’s clothes, she flounced past him.

He turned to watch her leave. He didn’t know it was possible to flounce without even a petticoat.

Refocusing, he took mental inventory of his current worldly possessions. Two golden lions, one set of clothes, one suit of the Armor of House Loran, one Amulet of the Shadows, one Ring of the Shadows, and now: one disgusting piece of fabric. These things he had with him, they prepared him for combat and kept his mind his own. They were really everything he had expected to need when it came to dealing with Phryane. Clearly, he had not expected to need to clean an ashy stove to avoid being caught in a lie.

He spread the cloth on the floor and went outside to grab a stick. There were some scraping noises from behind the house, but he ignored them in favor of not making a fool of himself. Back inside, he knelt down and set to work, poking and prodding with the stick, trying to lever the chunks out onto the cloth.

The ash near the opening was easy enough to get at, but as he worked at the stuff further back, the stick skidded about, breaking the chunks into fine powder that he hopelessly tried to sweep out with the thin wand.

Really, this whole thing was a waste of time. He should just kill her and be done with it. The were out in the wilderness, no one would ever know! Or at least, he assumed that they were in the wilderness.

It bothered him that he didn’t know how they had gotten there. His mind should have been warded against such effects. He should not be lost. He should not be so far from Ani. He should not be stranded out here in this crummy cabin getting slowly covered in soot. He had better things to be doing.

He stabbed the stick forwards, trying to maneuver something, anything, out of the fucking iron contraption that was apparently his life now. The stick stuck on a groove, bent, then sprang back, catapulting ash into his face.

He froze, closing his eyes, measuring his reaction. Lips pursed into a line, he gripped the stick tightly. Now was not the time to do anything foolish.

With a soft snap, the stick broke in his closed fist. He released a pent up breath, and opened his eyes. Carefully, he set the pieces of the stick down on the floor. He didn’t like what he was going to have to do, but at this point he didn’t see a way around it.

Sitting back, knees folded underneath him, he reached out a hand, and in it, energy, orange like a dying sun but crackling like lightning, gathered. It formed, flat, like a short wide blade, but with edges turned up to form a curve. He held, in his hand, a Pact Trowel.

It worked perfectly.

He was just tying the corners of the cloth together when Phryane returned. She stooped, setting several dusty bottles on the ground. “I found a root cellar. It didn’t seem to have any roots, but it did have these.”

He regarded the bottles. “Is that wine?”

“I assume so.” Phryane stood, brushing herself off. “If the layers of grime were anything to go off of, it will either be delicious, or vinegar.”

“We shall have to find out together.” He raised one eyebrow. Then, in a fit of inspiration, he added, “although I may want to use some for cooking.”

“Indeed. And I suppose, like a good chef, you must taste it beforehand to get a sense of the flavor profile?” The corner of her lip tightened, pulling her mouth just upwards.

“I may need to, your Highness.” He bowed his head slightly. “By your leave, of course.”

Her smirk widened, turning almost into an amused smile. “You have it. But we can’t dine on wine alone.” She took out a small velvet bag, and reaching into it, pulled out a quiver of crossbow bolts. She deftly strapped it about her waist, then knelt down. Reaching in again, she began pulling out the piece of a crossbow.

“You’ll do the hunting?”

“It seems I am the one prepared to do so.” She payed close attention to the work of attaching the lathe to the body of the crossbow.

“I’ll go gather wood then, to cook what you find for me.” He stood up, and took the bag of ashes with him. Phryane’s eyes followed him as he walked out the door. He bent, setting the bag down to right of the doorway, then continued on into the forest. The young queen had presented him with the best opportunity, he mused as he stuffed tinder into his pockets. An abandoned cabin, and alcohol. He could get her drunk, and then do away with her with ease. No witnesses, no risk.

Unless she planned to do the exact same thing to him. He didn’t even know for sure that those bottles had been found in a root cellar; they could have been in her little bag the whole time. They could be poisoned, or drugged, or perhaps even magical.

No, he was getting ahead of himself. There was quite a bit of grime on the bottles, they couldn’t be something a queen of Ani would have. It was most likely they really were from that root cellar, but that didn’t mean he could let his guard down. If she was the one sharing the bottles, she was no doubt confident that she could outlast him. Of course that assumption may be based on his late brother’s weak tolerance, but he couldn’t gamble on her being wrong. She had some connection to the dead gods, and there was no way of knowing how this would change the effectiveness of alcohol. No, he could not try to outdrink her. Anything he could do, any trick he could pull, she could match.

 

Haldir was walking back to the cabin, arms laden with wood, when he saw her.

Phryane was standing still, crossbow winched back and up at her shoulder, her eyes focused ahead. About her, animals were gathering. Birds flew from their perches to land throughout the clearing, squirrels climbed down trees to gather at her feet, a weasel slunk out of the underbrush. Slowly, moving as if in a quiet dream, a buck made its way forward. Its antlers were still soft with velvet, each footfall light on the leaf strewn carpet of the forest. It looked at Phryane, its dark eyes filled with love, looking down the shaft of the bow and into her sharp expression. It breathed, completely calm in her presence, completely trusting under her sway.

She pulled the trigger.

Haldir turned, and quietly made his way back to the cabin.

When Phryane returned he was sorting the wood into piles. Her arrival was announced by a scraping sound slowly getting closer, then the soft thud of a body being dropped. Her footsteps approached, one foot landing on the creaking threshold.

He held one of the large logs, and called on the strength granted by his patron, feeling energy coursing through his muscles. Turning slightly, so that she could see him, he dug his fingers into its broken edge, and pulled, splitting the log down it’s grain.

He was satisfied by the low whistle that escaped her mouth.

“I see you have returned,” he said, reaching for another log.

There were a few spots of blood on her clothes. “I, yes, I have.” She was distracted for only a moment, but still managed to make it sounds lofty. “I do hope that venison is suited to your palette. I know that some find it gamey, but I have no objection to it.”

“And neither do I. It is a fine thing to bring home from a hunt.” Haldir focused, and after a moment split another log.

“Good.” Phryane nodded, then jerked her head towards the door. “Well, it is outside, you can butcher it, then get to cooking.”

Haldir sighed, realizing how much work was ahead of him. How long would it be until they could eat?

“Is something wrong?” She gave him an appraising look.

Lying had not served him well so far this day, time for a different approach. “I will admit that I have only a passing familiarity with dividing up an animal. But more than that, there are a lot of things to be done and if I’m to do them all myself it will take quite a while.”

“Ah,” Phryane said. She stood for a moment, unmoving.

“Your Highness?” Haldir asked when she didn’t say anything.

“Hold on, I’m trying to figure out if I’m more capable of lighting a fire or field dressing a deer.” She contemplated for another moment, then nodded. “I’ll clean the deer. It can’t be that hard, you just don’t use any of the organs.”

“I understand that some see it an art form, but I’m certain that with a first try you can produce something adequate.”

She smiled at the reference to a familiar joke. “Then I best get to it.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a knife, then turned to exit. “Don’t burn the cabin down, that would be most unfortunate,” she called back over her shoulder.

So her little bag held a crossbow and a knife. What other weapons was she familiar with? What else did she have stored in that bag?

There were a few more logs to split. He grabbed another and winced slightly as he dug his now raw fingers in, his muscles flexing and straining until the wood gave way with a crack.

He didn’t really have any concrete reason to fear her. As far as he knew, she had no idea of his intentions towards her. She had no reason to kill him; she already held a higher seat of power than he. The only thing one could gain from his death would be to send Ryland into chaos from the loss of its final heir, and Phryane was doing everything she could to maintain order.

Really, he didn’t need to be so wary. As long as he kept his plans hidden, he was most likely safe from her. Not that he would change any of his actions based off of that comforting thought.

But he couldn’t plan his next steps now. Unlike splitting wood, building a fire actually required focus. He’d seen it done before. A little nest made out of tinder, and a stick rotated back and forth quickly until it produced an ember. Simple, in theory.

In ten minutes he was sweating, frustrated, and hadn’t seen a single wisp of smoke.

Glancing over his shoulder to check that Phryane was still outside, he shoved the wood into the stove and hunching over to block any vision. He whispered a few words and held his hands just so, and the wood came alight. A small flame, a crackling orange at first, that grew quickly from it’s magical spark. The striking color of his patron’s magic faded into the flickering range of color native to fire.

Leaving the stove’s door open, he lifted the pan resting on top to examine it. It wasn’t rusted, although it was as grimy as everything else in this shack.

He did his best to dust it out with his hand. Dirt probably wouldn’t help the flavor of the meat.

Haldir set the pan back on the stove, then moved to check the wine. At the very least, he knew how to do this. Taking off one shoe, he found a sturdy looking part of the wall and hit the bottle against it a few times, until the cork came out enough for him to pull it free.

With a pop, the bottle opened, and out from it came the smell of rotten fruit. He frowned, then took a quick swig anyway.

Immediately his tongue felt dry. The wine was bitter and overwhelmingly sour, but not the sour of citrus. This was the sweet sourness of old fruit, grapes left in the field to ferment on their own under the sun. All the aspects of this flavor were counter to what he imagined when he thought of a fine wine. Most of them were even counter to what he imagined in a barely drinkable wine.

Everything in this cabin, everything in these woods, were terrible. There was no exception, not a single redeeming quality. He wished fervently that he knew who to curse for this. Who deserved to be destroyed for putting him into this situation.

He poured the whole bottle into the pan. He didn’t know how to cook, and he never would. Hopefully the Queen of Ani would be done butchering the buck soon.

 


End file.
